


The Lullaby

by hrhrionastar



Series: The Honeyverse [7]
Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Episode: s01e05 Listener, Episode: s01e22 Reckoning, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the legendland rewatch challenge: <i>Listener</i>. Kahlan sings a lullaby to her son, and remembers another child she once sung to sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lullaby

The heat in the nursery was stifling. The heavy, blood red curtains were drawn, letting in not one ray of summer sun, and the only light in the room was provided by a crackling fire in the grate and a branch of candles, by which meager gleam the queen of D'Hara sat embroidering.  
  
The infant prince slept fitfully in his cradle, shivering in spite of the warm room. He had not been well last night, and the fever had been growing worse all day. Kahlan had sent his nurse, Becca, to fetch the healer, a woman she held in the utmost aversion, but whose expertise might benefit her son.  
  
Nicholas stirred in his sleep. "Mama!" he cried restlessly.  
  
Kahlan hurried to his crib, and saw that he had tossed and turned his way free of his bedding. He was shivering violently. She tucked him snugly back under the extra blankets, wishing her husband had not chosen this of all days for a hunting expedition. First he refused to leave her or Nicholas alone, and then when she really needed him he was absent. If that wasn't just like the man...  
  
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Kahlan sighed, smoothing back her son's fair hair. It was the color of pale honey, and already much darker than the white gold it had been when he was just a newborn. "Maybe when your father comes home he'll be able to bring your fever down with dark magic so you can sleep."  
  
The use of such a remedy would be wrong, but Nicholas needed rest. The curious sparkle was almost entirely missing from his bloodshot eyes, and the sight of him so listless struck Kahlan to the heart. Where was Becca with the healer?  
  
Softly, Kahlan began to sing:  
  
 _White grows the lily  
Red grows the rose  
Here lies my laddie  
Look how he grows_  
  
Once she had sung this very same melody to another little boy who needed to sleep. Just as on that occasion, Nicholas's eyes were peacefully closed before Kahlan finished the verse. She wondered wryly whether there was some lingering magic in the lullaby, because it had sent both Renn and Nicholas to sleep so quickly.  
  
But even had there been any magic, it would not have worked for Kahlan while she wore the Rada'Han her husband had placed around her throat.  
  
She scowled as she flipped open another of his gifts: a delicate fan painted with twining rosebuds. Although it struck her as unpardonably frivolous, the fan was at least more useful in the scorching heat of the D'Haran summer than the heaps of jewelry her husband showered upon her.  
  
Kahlan returned to the armchair to wait for the healer and waved the fan idly in front of her face, thinking about Renn. She hoped he was doing all right in Thandor. Now that the Seeker was gone, there was no reason for D'Hara to trouble the Sisters of the Light, a peaceful and deeply spiritual group of women who attempted to hold themselves above what they considered the banality of mere political conflict—such as the war between the Midlands and D'Hara. Nevertheless, Kahlan could not imagine any place other than the Underworld where one might be safe from her husband.  
  
She and Richard had saved Renn once. But if there was one thing Kahlan had learned in the two years since she had lost her Seeker and wed her most hated enemy, it was that people did not always stay rescued.


End file.
